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Back to the Grind: NBA Opening Night

Since the new season starts tonight, I figured it was finally time to get a word in on the NBA. As a Lakers fan, last year was mostly great, besides the nightmare ending at the hands of the Green Monsters of Death. The worst part? The fact that I couldn’t even hate all out, because I was happy to see KG finally get a well-deserved ring.

It seems fairly likely that this season will shape up a lot like the last, a least for the two Finals teams. With Bynum finally coming back from an injury-ridden year and extra time for Pau to gel with the team, I see no reason why the Lakers should fare much worse this season. However, I expect a number of teams to catch up with them, including Chris Paul’s Hornets, who only just missed out on first place in the tough Western Conference last year. Portland looks poised to make a decent run, at least making the playoffs, assuming Oden can stay healthy and on the court. I got nothing to say about the Eastern Conference at this point. There’s the Celtics…and some other chumps too, I suppose. How many below .500 teams will make the playoffs this year?

The season opens up tonight with three games: Cleveland at Boston (8et/5pt on TNT), Milwaukee at Chicago, and Portland at Lakers (10:30et/7:30pt on TNT). Talk about a sweet double-header to kick things off. I’m hoping the Cavs have a good showing this year, to give Cleveland at least some chance to keep LeBron from re-settling in Jay-Z-town.

Last but not least, I attended a Lakers-Clippers preseason game here in Fresno a couple weeks ago. I had never been to an NBA game before, and it was friggin’ incredible. Everyone was so huge. It looked like they were playing on six-foot rims. Anyway, here are some pics from the game.